Zen looked to Maximilian at his side but didn't say anything and was about to walk out the door when Maximilian stopped him
"Wait"
"What is it?" Asked Zen in a not so friendly manner
"Just... don't be intimidated, okay?, and definitely don't try to intimidate any one else , I'm serious this time, you shouldn't cause trouble here "
Zen didn't reply and simply left, making Maximilian feel like he had wasted his time talking to him.
"Sigh, just be careful"
Zen walked through the door and found himself outside the building with hundreds of participants split into different groups of five and with a dungeon directly in front of them
Zen looked at the large group of people and was a bit confused about what was going on but the next second he heard a voice call out his and someone else's name from far ahead, directly behind the dungeon.
Zen, not really sure what was happening simply started walking towards the direction where the voice came from and next to him he saw a boy with dark blue hair walking towards the same place.
Zen didn't bother speaking to the person and ignored him but Freya seemed to have gotten bored and suggested something
"Hey Zen, let's try out a skill from the system"
Zen thought about it and none of his skills actually did things like the ones in novels,he only had one skill from the system and from the description he was pretty sure it wouldn't be seen.
After a few breif seconds he opened the system screen with his mind and noticed he was getting quite accustomed to it. He went to the skills section and selected the [soul link] skill and randomly selected the person whose name had also been called as a target.
His eyes slightly glowed with a white light as he got another notice.
[Skill will take effect in 60 seconds]
This message turned into a countdown in Zen's ears as he followed the systems instructions and kept his gaze on the dark blue haired boy. The skill description also said that making eye contact with the target would half the time but Zen would have to keep eye contact until the skill took effect, and he couldn't do that now so he just did it this way, he wasn't planning on actually doing anything but simply testing the skill.
A few more seconds to the skill's activation, Zen and the boy arrived in front of the person who called their names and saw a tall fierce looking woman with black hair with a few visible golden strands and in the military academy's uniform.
She looked at both the boys in front her, sizing them up and asked
"Zen?, and Neo King?"
Both Zen and Neo nodded to affirm.
She looked at both of them and her expression softened for a brief moment.
In her hands were two small boxes, she stacked them both on top of each other and raised them both towards the boys and spoke
"You two are the only ones here without abilities,in these suit cases are two elemental control variant abilities which the academy has decided to..... give you, you both get one and after that will skip this testing and be immediately admitted into the academy "
At this point the timer on Zen's skill reached Zero and he suddenly felt a strange feeling of desire emanating from Neo but he didn't even need that as the expression on his face said it all.
He wanted that ability!
Thoughts suddenly started to enter Zen's mind but he was somehow sure they weren't his, they were Neo's thoughts
"Yes,an ability!, finally, I've been waiting for this my entire life, this will fix everything!"
Hearing this, Zen thought Neo to be a fool for thinking like that but what he heard next changed that
"With this she can finally climb up, my sacrifice is worth it. If i take this ability and work hard enough, maybe i can exchange it with a higher level one and i can give it to her so she can start practicing, she's so talented that by the time into the academy she'll be untouchable, my little sister will have a good life with no more pain and suffering and since she got the ability from me the academy won't be able to force her to do anything, it doesn't matter if i suffer a little as long as she can live comfortably,my talented little sister is already an automaton and is working hard enough already,as long as i do this she can rise".
With these thoughts Neo shakily stretched his hand towards the box with the ability circuit inside.
Zen who had heard everything suddenly understood,Neo was planning on sacrificing himself for his sister. If Neo followed through with this plan, although it might succeed, there was a very high chance that he would get either killed or something much worse would happen to him inside the embodiment of hell that was called a military academy within a year and although he knew this it seemed he was still willing to go through with it.
Zen understood the reasons for Neo's noble actions but due to his nature all he could think of was
"Foolish"
Neo's hand suddenly stopped as the thought that what he was doing was foolish entered his mind but almost immediately he rejected that notion thinking
"So what if it's foolish,we don't have any parents and now she's all alone now that I've left. We can't afford an ability crystal,we can barely afford to feed ourselves, at least like this one of us can make it "
Zen felt strange, it was almost like the emotions in Neo's thoughts were literally being carried to him but he was able to somehow know they weren't his.
Zen suddenly realized that the skill didn't seem to pass thoughts but intent, he wasn't actually reading Neo's thoughts but simply feeling the intent in those thoughts , after reading the intent he'd be able to tell what the thoughts meant but wouldn't hear the actual words and be able to put in his own words, this meant that he would seldom be able to tell what someone was thinking word for word but he'd always know what they meant . For instance, if someone wanted to throw a punch they wouldn't think too much and simply do it, The intent to attack would then be felt by Zen,or say someone said something but meant something else he'd be able to tell exactly what they meant. Shockingly it seemed the skill doubled as a mind reader and a truth detector as well, even more shocking was that it seemed to be a two way street, he could sense his target's intent and they could sense his, however it seemed that unless they were aware of the skill they would consider it their own thoughts meaning that Zen could possibly manipulate his target's thoughts infact he could manipulate Neo into rejecting the ability right here and now or even test to see the limits of the manipulation, this just so happened to match Zen's usual preferences but currently he wasn't interested in all that and he just wanted to get all this over with as soon as possible so he didn't bother and just watched as Neo was about to accept the ability.
Neo on the other hand was sweating as his hand shakily approached the box.
He knew taking this ability and not using it was basically a death sentence but he had already made up his mind.
Neo kept thinking about his sister to motivate him due to the whirlwind of emotions he was going through. Zen who seldom felt such suddenly felt a strange pain although not much
He closed his eyes and suddenly saw a blurry image of a person, it was a little girl with long hair that seemed to be somewhat similar to Neo's, she was in a long blue dress and kept both her hands behind her back as she looked up. The rest of her features were too blurry to see but Zen felt like he could see her faintly smiling at him happily.
Zen suddenly shook his head as he felt a bit dizzy and the next second opened the system screen and ended the skill usage.
As soon as he did, the image of the girl in his head disappeared. Neo suddenly grabbed the crystal and held it like it was the most precious thing in the world to him.
Sighing,Neo suddenly felt alleviated,he had constantly felt like there was some kind of shadow was watching him but he suddenly felt like it was gone, taking a deep breath he simply thought that he might have been more nervous than he thought.
"It seems that skill really is a two way street, i can't believe we actually saw his little sister, even if it wasn't clear "
Zen didn't reply Freya and looked at his SP
[SP: 2/10]
The skill used up 1 SP for every second so Zen realized that it had only been about forty seconds since the skill was active.
Closing the system screen he was once again greeted by Freya's voice as she spoke to herself and also jabbed at him in the process
"Looks like Zen here is the owner of the true pervert ability, not the hunters. Let me guess, you're thinking of all the ways you could use this, like manipulating a girl to believe no one is watching and strip for no reason at all,or maybe even convince a female classmates to go take a shower while you're at her place,oooh the possibilities are endless"
At that point she couldn't hold it anymore and burst out laughing , she wasn't expecting Zen to actually do any of that, she knew it wasn't in his nature and neither was it in hers but she was just trying to make him embarrassed even if just a little.
Zen who wasn't too affected by her teasing was about to say something when the woman in front of him asked impatiently
"Are you taking it or not"
Zen looked at the box in her hand and replied swiftly
"No"
But she didn't seem to have listened as she pushed it towards him and said
"Good choice, here you go ".
Zen tilted his head, confused and repeated himself
"I said I don't want it"
This time she seemed to have gotten the message as she furrowed her brows and stared at him for a few seconds before taking back her hand with the ability circuit in it.
" Cadet Neo King, you may return to the waiting area,as for you cadet Zen, join the rest of your teammates for the assessment, for this test you've been split into teams of five, your objective is to find a special token hidden inside the dungeon,so with five members, that equals five tokens enough tokens have been provided for every team, failure to find a token in the allotted time means failure of the test and to get into the academy as well for the entire team,the names and location of your teammates on the field have been sent to your watch, locate them and wait for the test to begin "
Zen listened to his orders and without delay he checked his watch and there was indeed a list of names on the futuristic screen
[Clyde Lincoln]
[Darryl Van]
[Gary Storm]
[Jade Callisto]
Zen squinted his eyes as he noticed a familiar name but he didn't bother with it for now
He looked below the list of names and saw what looked to be an arrow pointing in a direction, he tapped on it and immediately a small holographic 3D image of an arrow appeared a few inches above his watch,he could guess that it was leading to his teammates, perhaps one of them had a beacon of some kind, it would make sense for the academy to have a way to keep track of participants, especially with what happened on Mars.
Without saying anything else, Zen turned around as he followed the arrow to his teammates.
Meanwhile the woman behind him looked at his retreating figure a bit puzzled. When she first saw his name she was confused as to why he didn't have a last name before she eventually found out he was an orphan and probably didn't even know his last name, she had felt like digging a little deeper but eventually decided not to, she couldn't help smiling as she thought of the looks that would be on their faces as she reported that someone didn't take the ability offered to them.
Zen's hand was stretched out in front of him as he was guided by the arrow towards his teammates and after about a minute he noticed that the arrow was slowly shrinking signifying he was close, he looked ahead and a few feet ahead he saw another group,but unlike the others, this one only had four members and consisted of three boys and a girl
Zen looked closer and just as he expected, he saw Gary storm, the brown haired hothead who somehow knew Celia , he was flanked by the other two boys in the group who could only be Clyde Lincoln and Darryl Van although he didn't know who was who.
By now the arrow had already shrunk considerably and seeing no more use for it, Zen tapped the icon on the watch,deactivating the hologram before making his way to his temporary teammates
With calm steps and a tranquil expression, Zen made his way to the group of four and could already feel the unfriendly stares that came not just from Gary but from the other two as well, although he wasn't exactly surprised at this,he wasn't exactly sure what he had done to attract their aggression so he just ignored them as he usually did and when he was a few steps away from them,Gary suddenly talked to him
"Well if it isn't this trash who doesn't have an ability,i don't know what hole you crawled into to survive the last time but this time you're dead,trash.
Zen decided not to bother with him as well wasn't planning on socializing with them or anything of the sort. He suddenly remembered that the Storm family, just like all the other top families was based mainly on earth,so then why was this guy on mars , perhaps it was something similar to Maximilian's case, but if that was true, shouldn't he have no need for this test?
While still in his thoughts, Zen was suddenly interrupted by Gary
"You think you can ignore me worthless trash!"
It seemed he had been angered as he yelled at Zen before stretching his hand out towards Zen and in front of his palm was a visible green sphere of wind
"Remember this you son of a bitch, I'm in charge here, so you better act like a worthless piece of trash is supposed to act"
Zen looked expressionlessly at the sphere of wind and internally confirmed that this was indeed Gary storm,a member of the Storm family and the objective of one of his quests.
Zen looked to the side, paying no heed to Gary and his threats, he was far too used to that kind of thing to be bothered
He noticed a girl who seemed to be isolated from the rest of the group and was standing by herself looking somewhat dejected, looking to her watch,Zen saw two stars on it.
At this point both him and Freya were thinking the same thing and he turned to Gary to ask a question which made everything worse
"You rehearsed that,didn't you?"
Said Zen lazily in a tone that made it sound less like a question and more like a statement
Before anything else could be said, Zen turned away from the three, showing no regard for the threatening stares coming from the duo of Darryl and Clyde who seemed to be Gary's lapdogs as they flanked him from both sides
As Zen was turning to leave, one of the two behind Gary suddenly grunted
"It seems this little fool is getting cocky, we can't have that now, it's about time someone thought you your place trash "
As he said this,a ball of fire a little bit smaller than a basketball suddenly appeared in his hand as it floated above his palm,a wicked grin suddenly appeared on his face as he looked at Zen menacingly.
Looking at the fireball, Zen wasn't really affected, he had seen much much bigger, and seeing how and by who he was raised,it wasn't very surprising that he wouldn't fear regular flames, he had been desensitized to it all, and although that was true for quite a number of things, fire was a special case.
For some reason even Freya was laughing as she saw someone try to threaten Zen with fire.
After looking at the fireball for about a second, Zen simply kept leaving as he paid no attention to this person.
The person was about to attack Zen while his back was turned but Gary suddenly stopped him
"Wait Clyde, let this enjoy his last few moments before he dies in the dungeon. Besides,i want to tear him apart myself. It's not like the dumb school can do anything "
Zen clearly heard this as Gary didn't even bother to keep his voice down, infact he was just a bit short of yelling it out. He was clearly trying to get some kind of reaction out of Zen but he just kept his calm pace and didn't even bother to look back knowing fully well what would happen if he did .
Clyde unwillingly closed his palm, crushing the ball of flames in his hand and looked at Zen, planning to teach him his place in due time
Meanwhile Maximilian who had seen and heard all this despite the distance thanks to his ability suddenly sighed in relief as he saw Zen get away without a scratch. Even he had to admit that Zen acted and moved with such little regard for others that it was frightening even for him , Zen didn't seem to put anyone or anything in his eyes and the worst part of it all was that as far as Maximilian knew, it was genuine,he wasn't trying to look cool or anything, instead he seemed to have a genuine indifference towards the entire world, nothing seemed to bother or even phase him anymore
Maximilian acknowledged that Zen didn't seem to be the type to look down on people for no reason but the look in his eye seemed to passively release an intimidating and almost demeaning aura that made it look like he was looking down on people even without Zen actively trying to do this, well that had something to do with it but Maximilian felt like Zen's appearance also had something to do with it
Maximilian never really thought about it, but Zen had a feature a bit similar to his and this simple thing could make people, especially the males hate him.
He looked like he could cuck literally anybody if given the chance!
Zen and Maximilian both had a weird amount of... feminine energy around them, this was displayed in their skin, hair and even the eyelashes, infact,all it would take for them to pass for girls would be to put on a little light make up and say they were girls and people would believe them
Maximilian suddenly shook his head to stop his weird thoughts. He felt like if he didn't stop at that moment,it wouldn't be long before he started imagining Zen as a girl mostly because he already had once and didn't want it to continue.
Looking at Zen one more time, Maximilian suddenly remembered Zen's mutation and asked himself if Zen's intimidation effect on people was because of that, however he dismissed it. It seemed like it had more to do with Zen himself than his mutation.
While Maximilian was thinking, Zen had moved to a reasonable distance from the group and stood there, isolating himself as he stood neither too close or too far from them as he waited for the final assessment to start
He was never planning on staying close to them, and besides,he had something he wanted to check
Opening the system screen, he noticed something he had suspected already in front of the SP tab
[SP: 2/10](natural regeneration assisted by system as tutorial mode is still active until level 10)
Zen had expected this,it was the only explanation for why his SP was full when he woke up but what he didn't expect was that the system tutorial was still active. It seems the tutorial was for more than just combat but instead the all round use of the system.
From the screen, Zen realized that he actually had a natural regeneration but the system was apparently helping him with that.
After a few seconds Zen realized that there was no way to actually see the amount being regenerated so he just closed the system screen and waited for things to start moving.
Zen suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder out of nowhere
"H-hello"
He looked to his side and saw a hand sticking out of a small portal that was next to his shoulder .
The hand akwardly waved to him
"Hello,y-youre one of my teammates, right?"
He looked to where the voice was coming from and saw a girl around his age with one of her hands in a small portal next to her.
"N-nice to meet you, my name's Jade"
She said,akwardly smiling at him while waving.